The silent force behind the city

Management you don't notice

The work largely takes place in silence. And precisely that makes it special. Sarwan captures the essence of good Oracle management: "If you do your job well, people don't know that someone has been behind the scenes. Because everything just works."

Preventing problems

Good management is mainly looking ahead. Every morning Wouter and Sarwan go through all systems with Oracle Enterprise Manager. Is a tablespace threatening to fill up or is a major application update coming? Then they intervene before a user notices anything.

How valuable those short lines are became clear when an administrator accidentally started a process on the production environment instead of on acceptance. Halfway through he saw his mistake and immediately picked up the phone. Sarwan took over. "The session was still active and the process was still running. I terminated it, and after investigation it turned out no commits had been made yet." A looming production disruption, prevented in a few minutes. "The functional administrator was super happy."

"Applying patches in the right order is sometimes a kind of detective work. I find that very interesting to figure out."

Security as a challenge

For Wouter, the fun lies in the security question. A municipality holds sensitive data, and you want to protect that at every level. He tracks users with too many or unused rights, tests that together with the security officer and closes systems with patches, on the databases and on the web servers.

"Applying patches in the right order is sometimes a kind of detective work. I find that very interesting to figure out." Fast patching is not a luxury but a necessity, Sarwan adds. "When security updates come out, hackers see that too. And they get to work immediately too." That's why they roll out updates as quickly as possible. All databases now run on Oracle 19c.

Short lines and an open atmosphere

What both of them notice about Municipality Utrecht is the way of collaborating. A large organization with many departments, from Linux and Windows management to network management and ICS for connectivity and backups, that still manage to find each other quickly. "The collaboration is very direct, open and pleasant," says Wouter. "You approach people via chat and almost always get a quick answer, from high to low."

It started somewhat cautiously, he admits honestly, but that trust is there now. "It's nice to talk to them. There's really room for a joke." Sarwan recognizes that and sees the collaboration as the most beautiful part of the project. "The different management groups all work together. Sometimes they approach me: hey Sarwan, shall we schedule another restore test next week?"

More than just technology

Good management is not just pressing buttons. Sarwan investigates structural problems to the bottom, makes analyses and advises other teams where to look, even if the cause lies outside his own domain. Wouter describes his work as a web in which you set the right steps in the right order, often in consultation with Oracle and other departments.

Asked about the core of their profession, they come quite close together. Wouter: "Being consistent, being predictable and leaving nothing to chance. Working thoroughly." Sarwan derives satisfaction from precisely that invisible result. "It gives me a good feeling that the system stays online, and that you can just go to the counter to arrange your civil affairs."

"It gives me a good feeling that the system stays online, and that you can just go to the counter to arrange your civil affairs."

Recognized and appreciated

That does not go unnoticed. From the municipality's management came the compliment that Qualogy shows how management should work. A beautiful tribute to two people who prefer to do their work in such a way that no one notices.

Curious what Qualogy can do for your Oracle environment? Contact us via qualogy.com.